2 comments
:

A quibble: 1932's crude-birth-rate was 15, according to various Internet sources I find, not 8. (Your link does not mention year 1932 that I see).

Differences in population structure can influence crude-birth-rate figures (births per 1,000 population). Consider (a) 10 births per 1,000 population, when the average age is 26, vs (b) 10 births per 1,000 when the average woman is 46, as in today's Germany. Fertile females are a far higher share of the population in scenario (a) above, therefore that crude-birth-rate is 'really' much lower. Total Fertility Rate (expected children/woman based on that year's births) avoids this obfuscation.

The USA, as we know, has very-fertile Hispanics (See chart of USA's TFR changes by race over the past generation), and as a result, while the TFR for White-American women has settled at 1.85 and not moved in the past decade, USA's overall TFR is also steady, but at ~2.10. The white figure is 88% of the total figure. If this same dynamic holds true in Germany as well, then 'German'-German TFR is, in fact, 1.2 to 1.25. (1.4*.88)

A 1.25 TFR harkens a dramatic demographic implosion, the likes of which few appreciate. Simple mathematics dictates that, all else equal, a first-world population with a sustained 1.25 TFR will become about one-third its original size in two generations, and down to 21% its original size in three generations. How many 'German'-Germans will there be in year 2100? If we say there are 70 million now, there would be 15 million, or so, at the dawn of the new century.

- - - - -

And, believe it or not, it gets worse. The simple TFR stats I outlined above for U.S.-whites apply to total births to white women. We know that about 10% of babies born to white-American women in the 2000s were fathered by a nonwhite man. Thus, the stable US-white TFR of 1.85 during the 2000s would be decreased to 1.67 (1.85*.9), to give us a figure for a "white-white TFR" (i.e., both parents white). This is just below 80% of the total-nationwide figure. Are 10% of babies born to 'real' German women also fathered by nonEuropean men? I don't know. But just as an intellectual exercise, let's assume so: Apply the same logic to Germany as we did to attain the 1.65 'white-white TFR' for the old USA, and Germany's 'German-Germsn TFR' would be 1.11.

In a simplified demographic scenario, all else equal, first-world medicine, with a sustained 1.11 TFR, population implosion is, of course, worse:

Imagine a Europe in which there are only 10 million 'German'-Germans in the Federal-Republic, surrounded by five times that number who are of (at least partial) non-European ancestry. This could be a reality that some reading this in the 2010s may live to see. A better world, or a worse world?